Letters to the Editor

Socialism for the rich, free enterprise for the poor

SDG&E wants ratepayers to be forced to pay for costs incurred by SDG&E for the 2007 fire.

SDG&E expects its customers to be responsible and holds them accountable for their bills. However, when SDG&E is facing the possibility of having to pay for its own mistakes, there is an abdication of responsibility on its part.

For SDG&E it is perfectly reasonable for the public to pay the uninsured portion of the cost This would amount to millions of dollars ($500 million was one figure which came out in the recent hearings by the state Public Utilities Commission), to be paid by the ratepayers over a three or four year period.

We don’t share SDG&E’s profits, but we are expected to share its costs.

This is just another bailout for another corporation. How’s that for free enterprise? Taxpayers (I assume all ratepayers are taxpayers) again are expected to put up the money for the mistakes of a corporation. This is another chapter in the story of socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor.

At the recent PUC hearing two county supervisors, Dianne Jacob and Pam Slater-Price, both spoke against SDG&E and this rate increase. Dianne Jacob said that we were burned once and now SDG&E is trying to burn us again. Pam Slater-Price said that if the typical business has to absorb its losses, why not SDG&E?

If taxpayers are forced to pay for SDG&E’s mistakes, it will set a precedent so that we will pay similar bills in the future.

So while the rest of us see the fire as a catastrophe, SDG&E seems to see it as a new business opportunity. How’s that for a “corporate citizen?”

I urge everyone to write to the Public Utilities Commission before a decision is made on this matter. The email address is: Public.advisor.la@cpuc.ca.gov.